This invention relates generally to a beverage carafe, and more specifically to a hot beverage carafe substantially formed of metal, incorporating integral structure for enhancing the heat retention of a contained warm beverage, and providing a readily viewable volume indicator for ascertaining the volume of the contained beverage.
Hot beverages have traditionally been served during meals and as offerings of hospitality in many cultures. The use of tea has particularly ancient roots, and was known in China as early as 2700 BC. Coffee, a more recent innovation, was introduced into European cultures during the 16.sup.th and 17.sup.th centuries. The first coffeehouse was established in London in 1652, and coffeehouses were popular in New York, Philadelphia and Boston in the late 1600's.
Today, coffee drinking is extremely popular in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. Many coffeehouse facilities exist and are heavily patronized. Patrons have particular desire for specialized coffees including regional varieties such as Guatemalan coffee, African coffee, and Colombian coffee. In addition, decaffeinated coffee as well as flavored coffees are in great demand. Coffee drinkers are especially fastidious with respect to the coffee flavor. The cleanliness of the coffee preparation equipment, and especially the carafe, is of enormous importance in ensuring the finest flavor of the coffee. Thus, the availability of coffee carafes that preserve the special flavor characteristics of fine coffee are of great interest and value to beverage service establishments.
Unlike tea, which is almost always freshly prepared in small amounts, coffee is often brewed in larger amounts and kept in a pot or carafe for dispensing in individual beverage portions. This is particularly important in the beverage service trade, the restaurant trade, in hotel beverage service for large meetings, and for workplace beverage service. The requirement to store the brewed coffee for some period of time and to keep it at a hot temperature has given rise to a number of difficult problems brought about by the delicate nature of the constituents of brewed coffee. Because the quality of hot brewed coffee is rapidly degraded by reactive materials such as aluminum metal, prior art carafes have often been constructed of glass, which gives rise to well known breakage problems. Nonreactive metals, such as stainless steel, have ameliorated this difficulty but have created a new problem--the difficulty of estimating the beverage content of the carafe due to the opaque nature of the metal. Various gauge means have been used to estimate the beverage content of such carafes, but these have usually been breakable, difficult to clean, or difficult to read. Clearly, this was the genesis of what has become a long-standing problem.
The problem of reading gauges to determine the coffee content of a carafe is worthy of further explanation. As is well known, many restaurants and beverage service areas are only dimly lighted in order to provide an agreeably informal atmosphere for the diners. For this reason, it is often difficult to read gauges of coffee carafes in restaurant service, and special attention has to be paid to solving this problem. Normally, a restaurant serving person will carry a carafe of coffee as he or she makes the rounds of his or her patrons. Under these circumstances, it is essential that the volume of beverage in the carafe be readily determined, often in dim light, so that the serving person is aware of whether coffee is available for particular diners. Likewise, as the servers may be relatively untrained individuals who are working under intense pressure, the gauges must be easy to read. Prior art gauges do not adequately address these requirements, nor is their design even reflective of the fundamental nature of the underlying problem.
A further important requirement of these carafes is that they should be easy to clean. In the restaurant trade, a hygiene standard called the NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) standard is required of certain food equipment. The ease of cleaning the equipment is a crucial factor in attaining this standard. In addition, failure to remove all coffee residues from all parts of the carafe, including the indicator gauge, is crucial to the preservation of fine coffee flavor.
Prior art carafes with gauges are difficult, if not impossible, to clean properly. This may be so because of various bends and kinks in the plumbing of the gauge, whereby it is impossible either to clean the equipment properly in a dishwasher, and difficult to clean the equipment even manually. Thus, the availability of the carafe of this invention, which is advantageously "dishwasher-safe", as defined herein and thus readily cleaned without damage in a commercial dishwasher, is an important advance in the beverage carafe art. Moreover, the easy replacement of the gauge with a new tube likewise is an important advance in the beverage carafe art.
Still another problem created by storing brewed coffee in a carafe is the need to keep the beverage hot. Hot plates or similar heating devices have been used to accomplish this. The closeness of the vessel means to the heating element generally causes irregular heating of the brewed coffee, sometimes elevating the temperature of the beverage up to approximately its boiling point. Through such heating the coffee sometimes has the tendency to take on a scalded flavor, and, in addition, such overheating has a tendency to cause excessive moisture release, and evaporation, leading towards a change in the temperature of the reservoired coffee. The coffee may become excessively hot-around 190.degree. F. (88.degree. C.) This has lead to the scalding of restaurant patrons and resulting expensive lawsuits with large judgments for damages that have been widely reported in the press.
Yet still a further problem that exists with prior art carafes that have attempted to address some of these problems is the great variation in their size. As is well known, a standard type of beverage decanter is the coffee vessel such as is shown in the Martin U.S. Pat. No. 3,336,856. This vessel comprises a borosilicate glass vessel having a conventional balloon shape with a pour spout formed at its upper edge. Such a decanter is placed upon a brewing device that includes a hot plate, as also shown in said Martin patent, and remains there during coffee brewing, or to assure warming after a brewing cycle has been completed. In the beverage service trade, brewing devices made to fit this simple glass carafe are in widespread use--one very popular decanter of this type is made by the Bunn Corporation, Springfield, Ill. It is highly desirable that an improved carafe to address the problems already listed should be able to fit this type of brewer, in order to avoid the expense of replacing existing hardware and equipment.
Although it is clear that an urgent need exists for an improved carafe to meet these difficulties, simple means to do this have not been forthcoming. By way of background, attention is called to prior art methods and devices that have attempted to solve these problems in the past. U.S. Pat. No. 745,744 to Uhalt and U.S. Pat. No. 3,049,922 to Schwanske disclose coffeepot indicators in the handle of the coffeepot. U.S. Pat. No. 3,217,923 to Price discloses an electric coffee maker having a brew level indicator window disposed in the sidewall of the vessel. The level indicator comprises a polycarbonate plastic material, for example, and is light transparent so that a view as seen from the outside the level of the liquid within the vessel. The level indicator is fitted into a longitudinal aperture that is cut into the side of the vessel. U.S. Pat. No. 3,716,169 to Chivers discloses a liquid level window for coffee makers. The invention provides a handle and liquid level window assembly for a coffee maker characterized by a transparent or translucent molded plastic window overlapping an elongated aperture in the coffeemaker and secured in proper sealing relationship by the coffeemaker handle and its associated mounting means. U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,362 to Patel is a beverage server having a viewing window. More specifically, there can be a level gauge housing projecting forwardly of the body. The gauge has a window which has graduations marked thereon so that the beverage level in the beverage server can be visually determined. U.S. Pat. No. 2,533,578 to Gomersall discloses a water level indicator in the wall of the pot or maker. U.S. Pat. No. 4,638,928 to Webster discloses a hot beverage container having a sight gauge along the side of the container. U.S. Pat. No. 5,649,471 to Heynderickx et al. discloses a container having visual sight means on the side.
In most of the embodiments shown, the carafes are integrally structured into the brewing apparatus itself, and are used primarily for the brewing of the beverage initially, rather than functioning as a vessel for containment of the beverage after it has been brewed, and to be sustained in its warmth for eventual consumption. None of the prior devices provides the combination of all the important features of a carafe for the beverage service trade which are to provide a coffee carafe having an improved sight gauge situated in its handle whereby the gauge is easily read in dim light by unskilled personnel for quick viewing of the coffee level, to provide a coffee carafe having an improved sight gauge that is readily cleaned in a commercial dishwasher in order to assure the flavor of each batch of coffee, to provide a coffee carafe having an improved sight gauge wherein the gauge is readily disconnected from the carafe for replacement, to provide a coffee carafe having an improved sight gauge wherein the carafe is dishwasher safe and food safe, to provide a coffee carafe having a height less than about 6.75 inches (17.1 cm.) and a base diameter of about 6.5 inches (16.5 cm.) to fit into a standard coffee brewer, for example a BUNN-O-MATIC.RTM. brewer made by the Bunn Corporation, Springfield, Ill., said carafe having an improved sight gauge, to provide a coffee carafe having an improved sight gauge capable of maintaining its contents between about 170.degree. F. (77.degree. C.) and about 190.degree. F. (86.degree. C.) for at least 3 hours while in use, wherein the carafe does not require external heating of the brewed contents, eliminating the over-cooking of the contained beverage, which normally tends to ruin the beverage's taste and, to provide a coffee carafe having an improved sight gauge wherein the carafe will not break if placed on an operating hot plate surface, for example in a BUNN-O-MATIC.RTM. brewer made by the Bunn Corporation, Springfield, Ill.
In contradistinction, the present invention embraces and finally addresses the clear need for an insulated beverage carafe with volume indicator at appropriate cost and ROI values. Thus, as pioneers and innovators attempt to make beverage carafe devices cheaper, more universally used, and of higher quality, none has approached same in combination with simplicity and reliability of operation, until the teachings of the present invention. It is respectfully submitted that other references merely define the state of the art or show the type of systems which have been used to alternately address those issues ameliorated by the teachings of the present invention. Accordingly, further discussions of these references has been omitted at this time due to the fact that they are readily distinguishable from the instant teachings to one of skill in the art.